An update on December travels and a horror story.

Continuing the December travels update! Trip number 2 was a return trip to the state of Guanajuato, this time to a small town called San Felipe Torres Mochas. I was invited to come along with a startup ecotourism company called Turismo Mosaico México. They interviewed me in Guanajuato during the callejoneada and I ran into the team again during our one night in Querétaro. We took it as fate and I joined the team for this scouting trip.

View from the window of an hacienda being restored in the area. 

A critical figure in Mexico’s history and cultural legacy, Father Miguel Hidalgo spent ten years as priest in this small town before leading his country to independence. We were able to see his entries of baptisms, marriages and other church proceedings in the records of the parroquia (parish church) dating from the 1600s. It was a really inspiring moment, witnessing the awe on the faces of the Mosaico México team at the sight of Hidalgo’s handwriting and signature. 

Inside the hacienda. Thank goodness the beers later that night were less dusty.

Another highlight included a long night of drinks at our kind host and guide el Ingeniero’s bar Tres Metros Bajo Tierra. I wasn’t the only one to get excited about drinking nine feet under...

What a view. Rahjib agrees. We took an excursion to a cave while in San Felipe.

Another encounter that blew us all away was meeting the archaeologist in charge of a eight-year dig of an incredibly important ruins site near San Felipe, due to be open to the public in September 2010 in time for the Bicentennial. The archaeologist described some of the joys and frustrations about the research and excavation process. His team has worked through hypothesis about the use of this site, which is significant because to this date all prehispanic peoples in the Guanajuato area were nomadic. This large, permanent site could stand to refute or alter this hypothesis.

 Before we left, he brought out some artifacts discovered at the site and due to take up residence in the site’s museum. What a special treat. No one who visits this site starting in September will get the chance to speak so candidly with the head archaeologist, whose blood, sweat and tears are all invested in the project, or see these artifacts except through a thick layer of glass. We were blown away and left on an excitement high. 

Overall, it was a joy to work with the Turismo Mosaico México team, even though they did enjoy making a huge deal out of every bite of food I ate, me being the “food specialist” on the trip. And then proceeding to Facebook tag every photo of every food item I was compelled to eat on camera. Joy. But by far the best part of the trip was getting to know some of the proud residents of San Felipe Torres Mochas, residents who are working hard to show what jewels their sleepy town has to offer. 

After spending a few more days in Guanajuato (I couldn’t pass up staying with a new friend from Mosaico México who lives in my new favorite city), I made it back to Puebla for five hours before heading out with Manuel on an overnight bus to Chiapas on the 15th (trip number 3). I went on a four-day trip to the Selva Lacandona and then spent a couple days in the beautiful colonial city of San Cristóbal before an afternoon at the ancient Mayan ruin site of Palenque. 

Guatemala in the distance

Manuel and I met Alicia through Nico. Alicia is a young twenty-something biologist who rocks a mullet/rocker haircut, is a natural-born storyteller, hysterical and super fun. She is, in short, fantastic, zany and completely invested in her work to save the jungle. I couldn't think of a better person to lead you through the Mexican jungle. This pilot trip to the jungle was run by the non-profit Alicia works for, Natura y Ecosistemas Mexicanos A.C.  This non-profit works with various ejidos (cooperatives), including the ejido Flor de Marqués, to find alternative means of income to clearing the jungle to make way for grazing cattle or growing crops that do better in the central Mexican climate, saving the jungle while helping the people of the region. 

Around thirty years ago, the Mexican government dropped four families from the central Mexican highlands off in the jungle as part of a larger land distribution policy to start a cooperative and survive as best they could. Doing what they knew best, they cleared some of the jungle, planted corn and beans and started grazing livestock. But, as Alicia explained, the richness of the lush jungle is in the plants and trees themselves. The nutrients exist mainly in the ecosystem, not in the soil which is actually pretty shallow and nutrient-poor above the sandy base underneath. Not the ideal conditions for growing corn and bean crops. So the people are forced to clear more and more land to survive. The biologists of Natura y Ecosistemas Mexicanos A.C. are working with the ejidos to come up with more sustainable and eco-friendly solutions. For example, one ejido has set up a butterfly farm as both a tourist attraction and a means of creating and selling artesanías after the short lifespan of the gorgeous butterflies is up. 

Luckily, the Flor de Marqués land has suffered much less deforestation than land occupied by neighboring ejidos, making its preservation that much more important. 

After the overnight bus to San Cristóbal, Chiapas, we met up with the rest of the group and then drove five more hours in a van on windy roads through gorgeous, lush mountains and jungle. We finally arrived in Flor de Marqués the afternoon of the 16th. We spent four days camping out on the ejido’s soccer field, spending the days clambering through the jungle and bathing in a fresh jungle stream near camp to wash away the sweat and mud at the end of the day. 

We had the chance to see spider monkeys, loud, angry-sounding howler monkeys, macaws, other beautiful jungle birds and a huge range of flora: bromides, thick jungle vines, spiny trees meant to combat a now-extinct bear, the huge ceiba, and my personal favorite, the matapalo. 

The matapalo is a tree that grows vine-like branches around a host tree, eventually killing it. The result is an enormous hollowed-out tree made of what looks like fused vines, the ultimate climbing tree and dream tree house. As we clambered up about 20 meters, I definitely had a Robinson Family moment. The ceiba, however, is probably the living thing that most defines this jungle. With its enormous skirt of supporting roots called contrafuertes, its trunk meter upon meter tall, and its branches that extend at the very top of the trunk, so high that when viewed from below you either get a crick in the neck or dizzy, this tree was revered by the Mayans living in the area a thousand years ago. Their religious beliefs actually promoted protection of the jungle. The ceiba contained both the Mayan cosmology and their perception of history and time. The roots, the underworld or the past, the trunk, the earth or the present, and the branches, heaven or the future. You cut down the tree, future and past, heaven and the underworld collapse, destroying the present and the earth. Pretty accurate still to this day. Makes me a little nervous about the Mayan calendar’s prediction of the end of the world in 2012 (just see the movie for the highlights.) 

Baby ceiba

Big ceiba

One sign that this part of the jungle is recovering was the set of jaguar prints we saw on our final day in the jungle. Alicia put it in perspective for us: we had stumbled upon paw prints of a nearly-extinct large cat, a cat that had walked the exact same path we were on, headed to some thermal springs, just the night before. Wow.

More than anything, I enjoyed talking with the people of Flor de Marqués. Guys from the community served as our guides, clambering up trees alongside us and showing us some incredible bat-filled caves in the middle of the jungle. A group of women cooked breakfast and dinner for us, keeping us full despite our larger-than-normal appetites. I was touched because these women had never cooked for anyone outside their families before and were obviously nervous about feeding us. By the time the day we were set to leave rolled around, one of the women held my hand in a group photo. I felt humbled and like I had won the lottery all at once. Because one of the things that made this trip even more eye-opening for me, besides learning about the massive deforestation and seeing the beautiful flora and fauna firsthand, was seeing how very differently these people live. They did not inherit a thousand years of knowledge about the jungle but, instead, had to learn over the past thirty years how to adapt and survive with very little. And seeing the very little interest the fellow campers, mostly young Mexicans fortunate enough to have a university education in the cosmopolitan city of D.F., showed in getting to know these people and about their way of life just underscored the classism and racism still existing under the surface in Mexico. I was floored and felt uncomfortable, trying to lead by example but making no impact on my peers. Instead I decided that this opportunity was one that only Manuel and I could, or would, take advantage of and to make peace with that. But seeing this sort of blatant disinterest in making connections and overcoming barriers in my peers, young, educated Mexicans, diminished some of my hope for a less-discriminatory future for Mexico. Maybe I’m wrong, but it opened my eyes. Not that I didn’t feel the inherent differences between myself and these people from Flor de Marqués, that would be a lie and a too-rosy picture of myself. But the point isn’t to pretend differences in backgrounds and circumstances don’t exist, the point is to try to reach across those differences without suspicion or fear and to make a human connection. That’s why that woman saying, “I’m going to sit right here with you,” for the picture was the highlight of my trip. 

After the return trip to San Cristóbal, Manuel and I decided on a whim to stay a couple more days. The city is an interesting mix of European and indigenous, cosmopolitan but the end-of-the-world as well. Travelers from all over the world come to San Cristóbal as the launching-off place to visit the rest of Chiapas, and many become enchanted with the city and stay for years, creating a market for funky cafés and bars. I can see the attraction. The white-washed colonial buildings topped with dark tile roofs in a misty city surrounded by lush greenery make for a picturesque setting. Add to that the vendors in indigenous dress selling beautifully crafted artesanías, including colorful stuffed wool animals that I fell in love with, textiles, leather, and amber and jade jewelry, and a colorful food market and you know you’ve ended up somewhere very special. 

We extended our trip by one more day to head back to the jungle and the ancient Mayan ruins of Palenque. The huge temples and palaces, with more waiting to be excavated, were really breathtaking. I was pretty excited to see the Templo del Muerte. After a few hours exploring the ruins and climbing one-too-many pyramids, we hopped on another overnight bus to Puebla. I walked into my apartment at 8 am on December 23rd, with just enough time to shower and take my clothes to the laundry before heading to the market with Sra. Zanella to shop for the ingredients for her special spinach, bone marrow, and cheese lasagna and Sr. Canal’s stuffed chickens to bring to the ranch on Nochebuena. It felt to come home to my Choluteca family.

I ended up bringing more home from Chiapas than pictures, memories and souvenirs though. The last night in the jungle, Alicia told us she had a horror story to tell. We got excited, having been fishing for some horror or ghost stories the entire trip. (No better way to ensure a good night’s rest than telling horror stories right before sleeping in a tent on a cleared soccer field surrounded by dense jungle full of snakes, jaguars, howler monkeys and other predators, all very active at night to gauge from the enormous racket they make around 3 am.) But no, this was no ordinary ghost story. More like the plot of some science fiction film, maybe Alien vs. Predator. As our eyes widened and our jaws dropped in first horror, then disbelief, Alicia told us about a large fly living in the Central American jungle regions. This fly lays its eggs on the abdomens of normal, pesky but ultimately harmless mosquitos. When these mosquitos bite a mammal, the eggs enter the bite and hatch inside the mammal’s skin. The larvae grows for 8 to 10 weeks, feeding on the skin. The normal mosquito bite lingers and after a few days, a small watery opening at the center of the bite appears. The larvae keeps the bite open with its watery excrement so it can breath. The other sign that you’ve been infected with the bot fly is the sharp, shooting pains a couple times a day as the larvae moves or grows. 

I noticed a few days after coming back from Chiapas on the 23rd that I had a mosquito bite near my bra strap on the side of my back that hurt, still itched and wouldn’t go away. Sure enough, a watery opening at the center of the bite. I thought I got a tiny worm-like thing out while I was at the beach in Oaxaca, but things didn’t improve. Maybe I had twins? Today I finally managed to remove the bot fly larvae, and this time there was no mistaking what it was. Ewwww. Let’s just say I really connected with the jungle, in more ways than one. 

Thanks for joining my horror story hour....only look below if you’re not the squeamish kind. 

It's been awhile

Wow....it’s been awhile. Over a month actually. I spent most of December traveling in the states of Guanajuato, Chiapas and Oaxaca, sometimes spending no more than five hours in Cholula to eat, shower, do some laundry and repack. It was a blast, I got to see more of Mexico in a month than I ever anticipated. I also left each state wanting to return to see and know more, already thinking about when I could come back. At the beginning of this fellowship year I thought about traveling to other central and latin american countries during my time in Mexico. Now I’m realizing that this country has so much to offer, so much beauty, so much variety, so much good food, fascinating culture(s) and people. One year is just not enough. I’ve sort of scrapped plans to spend significant time outside of the country and instead have several trips taking shape for the upcoming months, including to Morelia and Pascuaro in Michoacán, hopefully seeing the monarch butterfly migration in the process, Tulúm and other ruins and beaches in Quintana Roo, Veracruz for Carnival and Zacatecas to the north. I’m also planning on spending some time in the Sierra Norte of Puebla. My “tío” José Luis made his career out of constructing highways and roads, including in the secluded mountains to the north of Puebla. He is familiar with many of the municipalities in the area and has offered to have me stay with some of his trusted contacts. This would give me the chance to live a few weeks at a time in smaller, rural indigenous communities. While it’s pretty chilly here in Cholula, it’s much colder in the mountains, around 1 degree Celsius in the afternoon. Once I translate that into Boston winter standards at a little above freezing, it doesn’t sound so bad, but I’m planning on waiting a couple of weeks for things to warm up a little bit before heading for the mountains. After all, I left all that heavy winter gear at home. 

In the meantime, a little catchup...Part I

 After coming home from Guanajuato (trip number 1), I spent Thanksgiving with friends here in Puebla and ending up cooking my first two turkeys. The day after Thanksgiving my friend Manuel and I cooked a complete Thanksgiving dinner for his mom, some cousins and some of our friends. I actually had more fun sharing this tradition in the company of some of my best friends here in Mexico than I did at the “all American” Thanksgiving dinner with the American teachers of the Colegio Americano the night before. 

The next day, Nico, Manuel, his cousin Keren and I went to their grandmother’s house to see her prepare mole de caderas. Before moving here, I had only heard of mole poblano, the complex dark brown sauce made of almonds, chiles, chocolate, spices created in Puebla. But I quickly learned that mole is merely a term for "sauce," and that there are a ton of different moles, mole negro, amarillo, verde, mole de panza, each coming from different regions or cities. So, back to mole de caderas. On the way, we stopped off at a Puebla market to buy some extra goat bones....yep, this mole is definitely unique. And unique to Puebla. The goat spine and hips required to make the mole come from goats that are killed in El Ritual Cultural y Festival Étnico del Mole de Caderas, or Mantanza, in Tehuacán, Puebla at the end of October. In a tradition originating in the colonial period, these goats are given salt every two weeks and little water and graze on bushes, grasses and nopales in the mountains for the last six months of their lives until the ritual offerings and dances culminate in the Mantanza. The result is a darker, dryer and uniquely flavored meat meant to be more easily preserved as an important protein source for the rest of the year. 

On the way over, we stopped at a meat market in Puebla to pick up an extra espinazo (spine), which runs about 800 pesos. This dish has become increasingly expensive to make. This year, fewer goats were killed as a result of the struggling economy, driving up the price of the meat. But even so, it was only mid-November and all the espinazo had been sold out. We picked out a couple sets of caderas and watched the butcher, whose family has been selling this special chivo meat for decades, slice them up into serving-size pieces. 

Goat parts in hand, we headed to Manuel’s grandmother’s house. Their entire family gets together each Saturday for la comida, the big midday meal. Only some of the family could make it this particular Saturday; we were only about 25 at the long dinner table. That’s a lot of mole. Thankfully there was already several sets of caderas and an espinazo boiling to make the caldo (broth) responsible for the mole's particular flavor. 

Manuel’s grandmother has been making and overseeing this recipe for decades. 

When we arrived, there was already a paste of chile guajillo, a mole (sauce) of tomato, onion and tomato, and the caldo simmering on the stove. 

Setting aside the meat, the caldo was added to the mole, plus a respectable amount of the chile paste. Some caldo and mole was set aside and only slightly heated with some of the chile paste for those who weren’t fans of spice. (I’ve noticed that as many people in Mexico don’t eat chiles, pointing out the severe stomach damage that can result from a lifetime of eating spicy food, as those who proudly chomp on whole chile serranos in between bites of eggs for breakfast.) After checking the flavor and adding salt to taste, an entire bunch of cilantro, still bundled as it isn’t served but only added like a bay leaf for flavor, was added to the mole. This cilantro, preferred by many Mexican cooks for its stronger flavor, has a much finer, feathery leaf and even some small florets at the tips. 

While the mole simmered for two and a half hours, we set about removing the small green pea-like guajes. Manuel’s grandmother swore that the guajes were almost as important as the chivo in giving the mole’s distinct flavor. Blended to a finely-textured paste, the guajes are added about thirty minutes before the end of cooking time.

I had been hearing about this unique mole, found only in Puebla and only in the few months following the Tehuacán ritual mantanza, since I had arrived here, and I’d been smelling it while it simmered all afternoon. While I was a little concerned that the “unique” and “distinctive” flavor of the mole de caderas might be a little overwhelming, the mole exceeded my expectations, slightly spicy, very savory but balanced with the flavors of the tomato, cilantro and guajes. Each bowl was served with a piece of bone and meat. Part of the fun was using our fingers to get off every morsel of meat. Probably the first time I've eaten a soup with my fingers.

This delicious and distinct mole de caderas definitely helped with the slight hangover we all brought to the table after post-Thanksgiving dinner drinks the night before. Nico agrees....

More updates to come! I'm learning a new photo editing software called Aperture 2...wish me luck.

Guanajuato

Not to sound like a cheesy tourism brochure, but Guanajuato truly is a magical city. It’s taken me this long to edit all the photos! Never mind that I might have been distracted by two birthday celebrations, one very large family meal, and ¡TWO! Thanksgiving dinners. 

But back to Guanajauto… I was invited by Manuel on a whim I’m pretty sure. But as the site of the International Cervantes Festival, the Capital Cervantina de América. the birthplace of the famous Mexican muralist Diego Rivera AND the setting of my new favorite move El estudiante, I couldn’t pass up the opportunity. I think I surprised both Manuel and myself when I actually showed up on Monday night. I discovered a city easy to fall in love with. A city with both a Don Quijote art museum and a mommy museum?! What’s not to love?

 

One night as Manuel and I wound our way through its narrow paved callejones, he began envisioning a city that would change according to his will. The stately stony-grey façade of the Teatro principal? Tomorrow, bright fuchsia pink. The alleys would alter their winding paths by command. Things, buildings, people would appear, disappear, reappear. For one week, he could live in a city as a god with videogame-like control. Such a typical metaphor for a boy, even a poetic type like Manuel. His imaginings reminded me instead of Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities, a novel in which Marco Polo describes 55 cities to Kublai Khan, each city more otherworldly than the next, each city’s existence possible only within the limitless scope of the human imagination. Take for example the following chapter:

Cities & Desire 5

From there, after six days and seven nights, you arrive at Zobeide, the white city, well exposed to the moon, with streets wound about themselves as in a skein. They tell this tale of its foundation: men of various nations had an identical dream. They saw a woman running at night through an unknown city; she was seen from behind, with long hair, and she was naked. They dreamed of pursuing her. As they twisted and turned, each of them lost her. After the dream, they set out in search of that city; they never found it, but they found one another; they decided to build a city like the one in the dream. In laying out the streets, each followed the course of his pursuit; at the spot where they had lost the fugitive's trail, they arranged spaces and walls differently from the dream, so she would be unable to escape again.

This was the city of Zobeide, where they settled, waiting for that scene to be repeated one night. None of them, asleep or awake, ever saw the woman again. The city's streets were streets where they went to work every day, with no link any more to the dreamed chase. Which, for that matter, had long been forgotten.

New men arrived from other lands, having had a dream like theirs, and in the city of Zobeide, they recognized something from the streets of the dream, and they changed the positions of arcades and stairways to resemble more closely the path of the pursued woman and so, at the spot where she had vanished, there would remain no avenue of escape.

The first to arrive could not understand what drew these people to Zobeide, this ugly city, this trap.

Guanajuato’s streets similarly wind and turn, rising and falling, and it certainly seems like they change at someone’s will, if not Manuel’s. And the buildings jut out to meet one another, just as if a group of men had arranged spaces and walls differently to try and prevent a phantom woman from escaping. 

Take for example Callejón del beso, an alley where two balconies almost, but almost reach each another. Legend has it that a young aristocratic woman of Spanish descent and the poor miner who lived across the alley fell in love. They would kiss, spanning the space between the jutting balconies. One night, her father caught her in the act and threatened to kill her, his only daughter. Not believing her father would actually carry out his threat, she and the miner met the next night, again kissing from their balconies. Without a word, her father entered her bedroom, saw the lovers, and retrieved a knife, stabbing his daughter to death. The poor miner planted his last kiss on her wrist as she died. Romeo and Juliet have nothing on this couple. Nearly every little alley as an associated legend like this one. It is a city that gives birth to stories, legends, magic. Guanajuato might feel like a trap as you lose yourself in its alleys, but it is by no means an ugly one. 

 Notice the guy with the backpack? Yep, he's kissing someone goodbye. Siiigh.

During the week Manuel and I spent in Guanajuato, we were continually surprised. Guanajuato seemed to have turned itself into the city of Manuel’s imagination. It seemed to be changing to carry out our every whim, like it was determined to show us just how magical a city it could be. Although the historical center is relatively small, meaning that we crisscrossed it repeatedly during our ramblings, we always stumbled onto something new, a new adventure.

During our first meanderings, narrow alleys opened onto beautiful churches, financed with the silver and gold removed from the city’s mines starting in the mid-sixteenth century, onto sweeping views of the city climbing up into the hills, onto plazas complete with fountains or ancient shady trees, picturesque scenes and still-lifes, perfect for an afternoon latté spiked with maple syrup or a savory crepe. 

Arriving after the International Cervantes Festival and high season had come to a close, we at times felt like we had the city to ourselves. 

One afternoon, we visited Teatro Juárez, rumored to be the most beautiful theater in all of Mexico with its Neoclassical façade, Moorish-inspired interior and original smoking lounge. Not another tourist in sight. 

We played around with our cameras as the crew worked on the set and tweaked the stage lights, preparing for the upcoming weekend’s opera. 

As we stumbled out of the dark theater into the afternoon sunlight, we heard music. A few steps further into the Jardín Unión, with shady trees forming a strolling arcade, and we saw the source: a full brass band playing classics in the plaza’s gazebo. We sipped on cocktails and enjoyed the music. Moments and coincidences you definitely cannot plan or recreate. 

The music finished, we began to hear yells and cheers in front of the Church of San Diego. We pushed through the gathering crowd to see a group of new mining students, covered head to toe in body paint, dressed as hookers, animals, luchadores, diapered babies and sporting haphazardly buzzed hair. Mining school graduates held a rope surrounding the group, often chugging alcohol from large coke cups and passing them on to the dancing and cheering initiates.

After a sufficiently large crowd had gathered, the brass band accompanying the spectacle, followed by the graduates herding the new students and then the rest of the crowd, headed up the street. We joined in, buying bracelets to let us into a salón, an enclosed party garden rented by large groups, at the top of the hill. We climbed for over half an hour, sipping brandy bought from a convenience store and learning the mining school chants and the jeers aimed at the law students.

 Thanks, Manuel, for stealing my camera to snap pictures of the action.

I, on the other hand, busied myself with buying six-packs.

We arrived at the salón, along with the now-stumbling initiates and the rest of the crowd, and filed in to see a huge stage and a large dance floor. After meeting three ¡Fort Worth! nurses in Guanajuato doing missionary work and buying beer by the six-pack from tents set up at the edge of the dance floor, we spent the next few hours dancing ranchera and norteño. Late-night tacos completed a perfect and completely random night. 

Teatro Juárez, viewed from the start of the callejoneada.

Another night we decided to go on a callejoneada, a walking serenade through the streets and alleyways lead by a group of graduates of the University of Guanajuato (these groups are called estudiantinas. I ran into an estudiantina in a bar in Seville before, but didn’t have a chance to follow them through the streets.) 

The all-male group, costumed in early modern attire complete with tights, play classic Mexican songs on stringed instruments and lead the crowd, drinking alcoholic punch from ceramic porrones, through the streets, ending on the beautiful steps of University of Guanajuato’s main building. Our group consisted of ourselves and a group of senior citizens, which made the singing and dancing all the more fun. Manuel and I finished our complimentary beverages and filled up with a handy bottle of wine we happened to have stashed in his backpack. I’ll stand by my statement that night, any time you have the chance to drink in the streets to live music is a good time.

The process of getting to know a city is fascinating. Each memory, each occurrence adds another layer of meaning to the streets walked, the buildings entered, the bars, restaurants, plazas and streetcorners. The city begins to take shape, not just the city known intimately by its residents and or the unknown city waiting to be discovered by two travelers, but becoming the city layered with meaning and memories significant only to oneself. Really, each of us has the power that Manuel desired, to change a city. That’s what exploring a new city is all about. It is the reason why I love traveling so much. 

In college I had a professor who suggested that the 55 cities in Calvino’s novel were merely reiterations of Marco Polo’s native Venice, another magical city that has captured travelers and writers’ imaginations from the early modern to the present. Rather than a canal city, Guanajuato is mining city with underground tunnels to prove it.

But the image of one bridged street evoked Venice, a paved street replacing the canal. A café spills tables out onto the bridge, making it a perfect place to eat a lazy, late-morning breakfast, people watching as the city strolls underneath. It didn’t hurt that a pivotal sequence of El estudiante was filmed on that bridge. 

After pushing back our departure by a day and a half, our last full day in Guanajuato was November 20^th, the anniversary of the Revolution. It took us a little while to figure out what all the music, horn-blaring and cheering was about, but when we did, we decided that the café on the bridge was the perfect place to enjoy breakfast while watching the parade pass by on both sides. That night, we wandered back to the University of Guanajuato, where most of my favorite movie is set and where I fantasize about doing a master’s next year. We found a full movie-theater-sized projector in front of the building’s steps playing an old Mexican film about the Revolution. Back to one of the first images of Guanajuato, now overlaid with the memory of being serenaded, slightly tipsy, by a group of tight-clad, mandolin-bearing residents, the memory of watching a film about a tumultuous time in Mexico’s history, the memory of falling in love with a colonial mining town. 

After a lunch of Guanajuato’s typical enchiladas mineras (deeply satisfying enchiladas filled with cheese, topped with red sauce, savory roasted potatoes and carrots, crema and queso añejo with a side of chicken breast), we were off to Querétaro to celebrate Nico’s birthday for the night and then back to Puebla. 

Guanajuato, a landlocked city just as magical, just as beautiful, and, from what I've heard, a whole lot less smelly than Venice. I don't think even Marco Polo could have come up with this stuff.